Tadao Ando's Starkly Beautiful Concrete Houses Are Showcased in a New Book

A living space in Tadao Ando’s Invisible House in Treviso, Italy, which is built partially below ground to afford privacy from surrounding streets. Photo: Mitsuo Matsuoka

“Many architects begin their careers designing private houses, but few continue doing so after they have achieved a certain level of fame.” So writes critic Philip Jodidio in Tadao Ando: Houses (Rizzoli, $115), his 300-page paean to 28 of the Pritzker Prize winner’s domestic projects around the world.

Tadao Ando: Houses. Image courtesy of Rizzoli

From an apartment building in Kobe, Japan, to a penthouse in New York City, the primary material used is hard, gray, unyielding concrete, but its interaction with sunlight results in settings that are surprisingly intimate and livable. This alchemical effect explains why Ando—a former boxer who taught himself architecture by reading all the right books and taking correspondence courses—considers private spaces to be his career’s most fulfilling expression and why, he says, “I have always held in my heart a resolve that my final project will be a house.”